


Ready To Fall Again

by erinn_bedford



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kisses, Pining, Tumblr Prompts, break ups into makeups, future!fic, they both have a lot feelings and so do i
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinn_bedford/pseuds/erinn_bedford
Summary: The next thing he knows she’s in his arms, his face is in her shoulder, and god, he’s missed her so much more than he realized.Or Lara Jean and Peter broke up four years ago, and she calls him because she's had a really bad day.





	Ready To Fall Again

**Author's Note:**

> Based on approx. 5 prompts asking for future!Peter and future!Lara Jean or a post college meetup. Alternatively titled how many time can I write "it's been four years" before I realize it's too many times.

He’s close to the edge of exhaustion when her name blinks on his phone.

Lara Jean.

Lara Jean Song Covey.

As in the love of his life.

As in his ex girlfriend.

As in the girl he lost because they both didn’t know how to make it work any longer than it did.

He thinks about ignoring it. It’s late, and he exhausted, but he hasn’t talked to her in almost four years; not since they both graduated college, and he went to grad school a few time zones away, and Lara Jean started her dream job, and any time they had for each other was eaten up by work and homework and people in their own cities. Four years and millions of changes and he can’t believe she still has his number. He thought he was the only one holding onto things.

He can hear her breathe a sigh of relief when he answers.

“Hi.”

She sounds almost exactly the same.

“Lara Jean?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry, it’s Lara Jean. This is Peter right?”

He smile despite himself. “Yeah. It’s Peter.”

She takes a shaky breath, and he sits up, ready to do anything she needs. It’s been four years but he still would do anything Lara Jean Covey asked him to. Which is probably a little unhealthy but he’s too tired to care at the moment.

“Sorry if this is weird but I saw you were in New York?”

“Yeah. For a few days.” He had posted about it on Instagram, just a picture of the sun setting between the skyscrapers, while he was waiting for a meeting to start. His company was planning on expanding to New York, moving him and some others here permanently.

He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about how close he might be to her.

“Do you, um, maybe, want to come over?” she asks and her voice is wobbly and his heart is hammering against his chest so loud he’s pretty sure she can hear it over the phone.

“Umm...” he pauses, thinking, his brain needed a moment to catch up with his mouth.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” she says, and she’s backpedaling. He’s heard her do it so many times he can practically see her pressing her hand to her head and scrunching up her nose. “This is so completely out of nowhere, and you probably have a million other things to be doing at -” she pauses and groans. “One in the morning on a Saturday, not to mention a million other people who you would much rather see than me -”

“Lara Jean.”

“And I just call you out of nowhere, and with no real reason and -”

“Lara Jean.”

“and, god, it’s been four years and -”

“Lara Jean!”

She stops talking and he’s smiling now, phone put on speaker as he wanders around his room, trying to find the pair of jeans he had stuffed in his bag before his flight.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just send me your address.”

“Really?”

He hears her sigh of relief and almost trips over his shoes.

“Yeah. Like you said. It’s been four years.” He wants to add four years too long, but he doesn’t know what this is yet. “I’d like to see you.” He wants to say he’ll never have anyone and or anything more important to see or do at one on a Saturday morning, but he doesn’t.

“Thanks. I just,” she takes a deep breath, and he pulls his shirt over his head, before sprawling across the bed to grab his phone again so he can hear her better. “I just really need to see someone I know right now.”

“I’ll be right over.” He checks the address she sent and plugs it into his GPS hoping he’ll be able to work out the subways. “I’m glad you called,” he says before he can stop himself.

She’s silent on the other side of the phone for a minute, and he thinks she might change her mind and tell him to forget it.

“Me too.”

xXx

There’s a corner shop still open in the subway, and he stops to grab Twizzlers and M&M’s because he doesn’t want to show up to her apartment empty handed and he knows she’s a sucker for M&M’s.

He texts her when he’s outside her place, the doorman starring at him a like he’s not to be trusted as he rings her bell.

And then he’s riding an elevator and then he’s right outside her door, and then-

Her hair is short.

Like cropped all the way up to her chin short, and she’s staring at him with her brown, brown eyes, and she’s standing there in a pair of leggings and sweatshirt from high school that is way to big on her, and the next thing he knows she’s in his arms, his face is in her shoulder, and god, he’s missed her so much more than he realized.

Her shampoo is different, but she still wears the same perfume and she still fits perfectly in the dip between his shoulder, and he never wants to let her go again.

But she steps back. She pushes her hair out of her face, and smiles. “Hi. I’ve had a really bad day.”

He pulls the candy out of his pockets, and her smile only grows. “I brought candy.”

Her apartment smells like cookies and chocolate, and he can see her collection of romance novels spread around her dining room table, and there’s a big part of his brain that thinks this might be a jet lagged induced hallucination, but then she touches his wrist, and he knows it’s real.

There should be an awkwardness to this entire thing. It’s been so long since they’ve seen each other. They broke up in the parking lot of an airport and phased out of each other’s life almost completely. But she leads him to the couch, and she folds into it, legs up to her chin, and he sits on the other side, giving her space. It’s not awkward as it should be. It feels like they picked up right where they left off.

“How have you been?” she asks, twisting herself so she’s facing him, face half obscured by his knees.

“Good. I’ve been busy. My company is planning on expanding, so that’s why I’m here, in New York. Meetings, and promotions, and living arrangements and such.”

“That’s great Peter!” She bites her lip, and he has to look away from her before he does something rash.

“How about you?”

This is where it gets awkward. Because it doesn’t feel much different, but they are different. There’s four years of stories, and events, and friends that neither of them know much about anymore.

“Good. Mostly.” she tucks her hair behind her ears, and laughs, more of a puff of air than anything. “Actually, this entire week has been shit.” She pauses for a moment, as if contemplating how much she wants to tell him. “I was passed up for a promotion. And then two of my article ideas where vetoed by the person who got the promotion instead. And I was trying to adopt a dog but someone with a kid and backyard got her first. Then, my dad told me that him and Trina are selling the house and moving to Florida, and Margot is moving to Scotland permanently with her fiance, and-” She blinks when his hand falls onto hers, resting on top of her knee. “You’re in New York.”

He freezes. “Sorry, I’m on the list of bad things?”

“Yes.”

He watches her eyes go wide, and he tenses.

“No!” She grabs his hand before he can move it off her knee. “Sorta. Like in the way that you were in New York, and I am in New York, and I miss you ever single day, and I drank two glasses of wine and ate an entire bag of Doritos when I got home from work because of how stressed I am, and then I check my Instagram and you are in New York.” She licks her lips and her legs fold in front of her, moving herself closer to him. “It didn’t really help my level of stress, so then I stress baked, and was putting the cookies in oven before I realized they were you’re favorite cookies. Now you’re here. In New York, in my apartment. At god knows what time in the morning.” She pulls his hand closer, and presses her lips against his knuckles.

He’s pretty sure he spontaneous combusts.

“So you were a bad thing. Turned very, very good thing. I still don’t know why you answered your phone. Or why you showed up. But I’m so, so glad you’re here.”

He twists on the couch, pulling one leg up, his knee knocking against hers. “I’m glad you called.”

“You already said that.”

“Have I told you that I’ve missed you yet?”

Her nose scrunches up, and it takes all his will power to not push himself closer to her and kiss her then and there.

“Don’t think so.”

“Lara Jean, I’ve missed you so-”

She drops his hand and slips off the couch, disappearing to the other side of the room before he can fully realize what is going on,

“God, Peter we broke up. Four years ago.” She presses her hands to her head and she’s pacing. “And now, I’ve had a bad week, and you’re here, and I almost just kissed you.”

He moves to say something, anything, but she holds out a hand. “No. I need a moment to think.”

Peter’s sure she’s going to kick him out. She’s going to come to her senses, and realize she is better off without him, and send him back to his hotel, pretending nothing ever happened.

She going to say she regrets calling him, that these past four years without him have been good, that she’s doing great and that she doesn’t feel the same way about him that he does about her.

But he can’t say it back. If there’s anything these past 15 minutes have told him, he’s not over her. He doesn’t know if he ever really will be.

He also doesn’t know if he can hear her say those things.

Peter pushes himself off the couch. “I can go, if you want.”

She stops pacing. “No.” Lara Jean reaches out like she’s going to stop him, before dropping her hands back to her side. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“Well, I mean,” he scratches the back of his neck, and shrugs. “I like IPAs now. And kale salad, but those are products of California. I still can’t surf. I coach a lacrosse team out of the rec center close to my house. I still crave your baking like every day. Owen’s taller than me now, and my mom is engaged, my favorite movie is still Die Hard, and I’m a godfather to one of Greg’s kids. I love my job, and my mom still asks about you, and I read every one of your articles every time I stand in line at the grocery store, and I can’t bring myself to delete your number, because I have a stupid hope that one day you might call. Or that I’ll work up the courage to call you.”

He stops when he finally gets the courage to look at her again, and she’s staring at him, mouth slightly open, hands clenched at her sides.

“We broke up, Peter.”

“Because of distance. And lack of time. Not because we stopped loving each other.” He says it harsher than he means to, because he’s exhausted, because he needs her to know that he never stopped loving her, and because at this point he’s little desperate to see her smile again.

Her chin quivers, and god, he can’t see her cry. He’ll never forgive himself if he makes her cry.

“You drive me insane, Peter Kavinsky.”

“I can’t tell if you were saying that in a good way or a bad way,” he says, taking a step toward her.

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I don’t know either.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, wanting to give her the choices. He would do anything she wants him to. Even if it meant leaving and never seeing her again.

“No. Not at all.” She closes the space between them, still only coming up to his chin. “So, you still loved me when we broke up?” Her eyes are teasing and she pushes up on her tip toes.

“Lara Jean Song Covey. Believe me when I say I never stopped.”

She absolutely glows, and she wraps her hands around his shoulders.

“So you are saying that you wouldn’t mind if I kissed you right now.”

“I would not mind at all.”

Her lips connect with his, and it’s like the world tilts back into place.

His hand slide to her waist, and then she’s pushing him onto the couch, trapping him between her knees.

She pulls back for a moment, her hands sliding into his hair.

“Wait. We still live on opposite coasts,” she says, uncertainty slipping into her voice.

Peter tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “My company is expanding. And I’m not only over here for the meetings. They want to send me here.”

“Oh,” she sighs, and then leans in to kiss him again. “I never stopped loving you either, Peter Kavinsky.”

He captures her lips, and this time, it’s harder, more teeth and knocked noses, four years of missing each other and four years of feelings and sadness and separation forced into it. She pulls away to breathe and he moves his way down her jaw, nipping at the spot he knows she’s the most sensitive.

Her hands slip under his shirt, and she drags his mouth back to hers.

He’s missed this. He’s missed her so much. He missed telling her about his day, and helping her bake cookies, and watching her favorite movies, and kissing her like it was what he was born to do.

He missed her scrapbooks, and writing her love notes, and hearing the way she moaned when his hands slipped into her leggings.

He pulls away first this time, dropping head to the back of the couch as her lips find their way to his collar bone.

“Covey, what does this mean?” He can’t kiss her like this, be with her like this, only to have it taken away again. He doesn’t know if he could survive saying goodbye to her again.

She pauses for a moment, peppering small kisses along his skin, before she pulls herself up so she can look at him.

“It means, you and me,” she takes her hands and holds them out between them. “Lara Jean,” she shakes one hand. “And Peter,” she says, shaking the other before linking them. “Together. If that’s what you want. Because I do.”

Peter gently grabs her hands and presses his lips against her fingers. “I’ve always wanted you.”

She breaks into a smile and leans forward until their forehead and pressed together, their hands caught between them. “These past four years have majorly sucked without you. I don’t ever want to do that again.”

“Me neither. Ever.” He kisses her nose, and she pushes herself closer to him, dropping her head to his chest. “Once I get settled here in the city, maybe we could try to adopt a dog. Before some family with a backyard and a kid jump in.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And you can show me to all of your favorite places, and I can be here for when you have really shitty days or weeks again, and you can teach me all of the new recipes you learned over the years, and we can-”

She kisses him, effectively shutting him up.

“I’m so glad you came to New York during my shittiest week of the year.” Lara Jean says, curling a piece of his hair around her fingers.

“I’m really glad you called me.”

“Me too.”

He’s close to the edge of exhaustion, but Lara Jean sighs happily and burrows her head into his shoulder, and for the first time in four years, Peter feels like everything is right as it should be.

He’s right where he should be.

And he never plans on leaving again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Title is from Timebomb by Walk the Moon, aka the best song to come out of the new year so far. Thank you to everyone one who requested a future!fic over on tumblr. Hope you all are having a great start to the new year!
> 
> As always, you can find me over on tumblr [here!](http://fallinfor-youreyes.tumblr.com/)


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